


Words, Or Whatever

by murderofonerose (atmilliways)



Category: Metalocalypse (Cartoon)
Genre: Episode: s04e12 Church of the Black Klok, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29448930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atmilliways/pseuds/murderofonerose
Summary: Nathan's been having these whale dreams for god knows how long and isn’t ever seen to acknowledge them until The Church of The Black Klok, when Ishnifus says, “We know why you destroyed liquid master.” And even then, all Nathan does is freeze. We never see it actually discussed.Pickles takes issue with this.
Relationships: Nathan Explosion/Pickles the Drummer
Comments: 5
Kudos: 9





	Words, Or Whatever

**Author's Note:**

> **Nickles Week Day 1 - Music or Ocean**
> 
> It counts if both scenes take place _inside the ocean_ , right?

“Hey!”

The word echoed down the Dethsub’s metal corridor. Nathan ignored it, didn’t stop, didn’t even slow down. He didn’t know about the rest of the guys but he could hear Pickles’ sneakered feet pounding after him, and all he could think was,  _ Nope _ .

“Hey, you dick,” Pickles bellowed—not a full-throated Explosion roar but sharp and precise, like surgical lightening. “Get yer fat ass back here!”

_ Nope. Nope nope nope. _

He didn’t make it to his room before Pickles caught up with him, which was a fucking shame because the entire crux of his plan to avoid this shit kind of required having a thick metal door he could slam shut in the drummer’s face. One running jump and Pickles was on him, arms around Nathan’s neck and hands scrabbling for a handhold. A finger went up his nose, several others jammed and scraped against his clenched teeth, and Nathan stumbled to try and find his balance with the extra weight. Meanwhile, Pickles managed to get his legs around him too. 

Nathan spun in a clumsy circle in an attempt to throw him off. When that didn’t work, he threw himself back-first at the nearest bulkhead—and one of Pickles’ heels jerked reflexively upon impact, nailing him right in the balls. Eyes crossing, Nathan wheezed and sagged, sliding down the wall a bit, Pickles still pinned behind him. 

They took a moment, Pickles mashed between a rock and a hard place while Nathan tried to get his breath back, both temporarily but effectively defeated. 

“. . . So?” Pickles croaked finally. 

Nathan grimaced. “I don’t want to fucking talk, asshole.”

“Hey,  _ bitchtits _ , you owe me,” Pickles insisted with a weak smack to the other man’s ear. “You fuckin’. . . . You  _ know _ it ain’t just about Abigail.” Her name hung in the air between them for a second like a toxic cloud, before Pickles made the effort to shake it off and angrily continue on to his point. “What the fuck was that Santa guy talkin’ about, about why you smashed the record? You did it ‘cause of a fuckin’  _ dream _ ?”

“It wasn’t just one dream,” Nathan growled without thinking, trying to duck away from the swatting. 

The indignant gasp, less than an inch from Nathan’s ears, was all too audible, and then the swatting intensified. “Did ya smash my  _ nose _ and ruin our friender bender because’a some dreams too?!” 

“ _ Shut up! _ ” He didn’t want to talk about this. Stupid weird priest guy, making him sound like some sort of fucking wacko and getting Pickles all pissed of at him again . . . . Even more pissed, anyway. Didn’t, didn’t, didn’t. Just, no. He couldn’t even think about it without—

Nathan shuddered. Thinking about it felt like plugging his brain into an electrical socket, only instead of electricity it was something vast and deep and dark. Crushing, like the Mariana Trench. He was too small when he wasn’t sleeping; it would crush him like a bug, probably, and it was unsettling as shit. 

He pushed off the wall, causing Pickles to grunt in surprise and drop back onto his own two feet or risk falling on his ass, and stormed away. This time, there were no following footsteps. 

As an afterthought, he called over his shoulder, “If you’ve got a problem with the stuff I do, bring it up at the next fucking band meeting.”

“Dood,” Pickles said tiredly, “the band’s fuckin’ over. We just played the last show.”

The words didn’t quite sink in until he was in his room with the door firmly shut. Nathan stared at his reflection in the oversized porthole, which looked out into an unknowable inky blackness. 

And then it hit him. Not only was Dethklok dead, he had to write a fucking eulogy. 

* * *

There wasn’t much time to think while it was all happening, and then Charles—bloodied, one eye a swollen mess, smelled like a disemboweled corpse, but at least still alive—had hustled them into a helicopter. After that, there was too much time to think and not enough answers. 

Pickles followed Nathan to his room on the Dethkopter, both of them still in their funeral suits. He kicked the door shut behind them, and Nathan turned. 

One running jump and Pickles was on him, arms around Nathan’s neck and hands scrabbling for a handhold. Fingers dug deep into black hair, blunt nails scraping against scalp, as Pickles kissed him hungrily and Nathan returned it with almost as much desperation. Anything to get the coppery taste of blood off his tongue and the image of Toki disappearing into the mist out of his mind. Nathan took his weight easily because he was expecting it and started drifting backwards towards the bed. Meanwhile, Pickles managed to get his legs around him too. 

If he tried, Nathan could almost pretend that they were on their friender bender after all—because there was so much more to those trips  than flipping off national monuments and pissing in touristically significant fountains and drinking their body weight daily for plausible deniability about the rest. 

Almost. 

He wasn’t paying attention to how close the bed was and fell backwards onto it when it surprise-slammed into the backs of his legs. Pickles let out a whoop on the way down, like he did on roller coasters during sudden dips. Nathan blinked stupidly up at the smaller man’s adrenaline-junkie grin and blurted out, “I fucking missed you.”

“Missed you too, dood.” Now that they were on the bed, Pickles braced himself over Nathan with a smirk and ground expertly against him. “Could’a been doing this the whole time if you’d just—”

“You wouldn’t have gotten it,” Nathan interrupted. “ _ I _ don’t even get it.” 

He reached for Pickles hips, wanting more friction, but found himself not only swatted away but his hands suddenly pinned over his head against the mattress. His drummer stared down at him intently, daring him to try and break free—which he didn’t want to do, particularly. After a second, Pickles resumed grinding on him, slow but sharp to drive home the point. 

“Jest because it ain't metal to, y’know.  _ Share yer feelings _ about shit or whatever, that doesn’t mean you don’t have ta tell me stuff when it’s important. If you’ve gaht a fuckin’ reason for something, at least _tell me_ there’s a reason.” He dipped down and bit at the side of Nathan’s neck, sucking hard at the spot to leave a bruise. 

Nathan bit back a moan. “You . . . wouldn’t have liked that either.”

“. . . . Okie, maybe not,” Pickles admitted, working his way down to nip at a collarbone. His hands trailed lazily down Nathan’s arms with just enough pressure to suggest that keeping them up by his head was encouraged. “But we still coulda been doin’  _ this  _ that whole time if you’d been less of a dick.”

His fingers curled around the collar of Nathan’s shirt, then suddenly fisted and yanked in both directions, sending buttons pinging off all over the room and pushing both shirt and suit-jacket out of the way. Before Nathan could protest, though, Pickles continued a sloppy journey down his chest, so he figured . . . it was just a shirt. 

“I, uh,” Nathan gasped. “I guess, haaaa. . . .” He was a little bit ticklish, and Pickles was taking full advantage of that fact, trailing his fingers lightly down the bigger man’s sides. Shimmying down his body like this was some sort of Snakes N Barrels photoshoot, mouth red and eager. (From making out, not apology-blood. Probably.)

About two seconds after Pickles settled between his legs, Nathan broke and reached down to tangle his fingers in red dreads. He needed. . . . Fuck.

It would be easy to fade into this, but he had this nagging suspicion that he ought to say . . . something. They’d been fighting less than twenty-four hours ago. Then some old guy in a dress had said some stuff and everything had shifted slightly. Same world, just everything felt two inches to the left. And if there was anything Nathan had gotten out of it, it was that maybe some of his gut instincts—the perfectionism, the certainty of purpose, the  _ nagging suspicions _ —weren’t a universal experience. 

“Pickles?”

The only answer he got was a hum, and for a second it was all he could do not to mentally say  _ Nope _ and then stop thinking. 

“Maybe you wouldn’t have gotten it,” Nathan groaned, “but maybe— _ ahhh, fuck _ —that’s ‘cause, uh, it wasn’t a normal thing, and maybe I still should’ve tried— _ fuck, do that again _ —using my, uh . . . words. . . .” 

Pickles paused, then released him with a wet pop. “Thanks, Nate.” 

They stared at each other for a moment, not used to this sort of shared vulnerability. Nathan wasn’t sure about Pickles, but he’d never really . . . admitted anything like this to anyone before. It scared him, a little—he didn’t like new things, and there had been a  _ lot _ of new things today. Most of which he still hadn’t really processed at all. Whale-song static pressing at the edges of his brain that wanted him to pay attention to something, but  _ nope, nope, nope _ . 

Seeing Pickles now, though, his face curiously soft with something complicated and big and Nathan didn’t know a good word for it because the four letter word he  _ did  _ know was too fucking sappy to even think. . . . It hit him. 

Maybe he was just imagining it, but his gut instinct said that Pickles four-letter-worded him, and that’s why things between them had been so fucked up lately. But everything going to be okay now, because . . . they'd worked it out. Right?

Pickles went back to expertly sucking him off. Everything was fine. (Except Toki was missing and people expected them to be heroes and nothing was okay at all.)

Everything would probably be just fine. 


End file.
